AdSense for RSS Feeds – How Contextual Are the Ads?

Over the last few weeks we’ve (b5media) been experimenting with AdSense for RSS on our blogs (including ProBlogger). I’d previously had them on my photography blog but not here on ProBlogger.

Since activating them I’ve had around 1 email a day from readers telling me that they are seeing ‘strange’ ads. The feedback is that some readers are seeing ads for scammy ‘make money online’ products (relevant but not really what I’d want to associate my brand with) or irrelevant ads.

Last night a reader (Pawel from SEOblogr) emailed to tell me that he was seeing ads for a Gay Chubby Dating service. He sent me this screenshot (click to enlarge).

Now I’m sure ProBlogger has its fair share of Gay Chubby reader who are looking for dates – but it’s not the most relevant ad in the world – certainly not ‘contextual’ as the post it appeared under was about the names that people leave comments under on blogs.

I’m wondering if this ‘irrelevant’ AdSense for RSS feeds is impacting others? I do know that irrelevant ads impact normal AdSense ad units from time to time but it seems I’ve had a lot more complaints about them in my feed than any other ad unit.

PS: I took a few minutes to scan through other b5media blogs to see how relevant the AdSense ads are on them. In most cases they are pretty good. The only other explanation I can think of is that perhaps because the ads are geotargetted that in some parts of the world there are less ads in the system and that relevancy suffers in these places.

Related Posts

Problogger.net runs on the Genesis Framework

The Genesis Framework empowers you to quickly and easily build incredible websites with WordPress. Genesis provides the secure and search-engine-optimized foundation that takes WordPress to places you never thought it could go.

Comments

I wonder also if it’s taking into account your Google Web History, Search History, and then finally the actual RSS feed you’re viewing. Perhaps the combination of all those together plus some weirdness in the algorithm is leading to strange results like the Gay Chubby ads?

Sort of like when that guy’s TIvo thought he was gay. Nothing wrong with it, but I remember it frustrated him and recommended a lot of things that were irrelevant just because he liked Will and Grace.

Hi Darren , I tried to put adsense in my RSS but i am having some problem…though i faced similar problem with the image ads on my blog…..i was getting ads of some adult dating site with pics of nude girls…i was shocked because i knew that google didnt allow porn ads ….i immediately removed adsense from my blog as its embarrassing to get adult ads on a tech blog

I think that there is more then just the content of the RSS Feed Article. Google might be looking at browsing history etc. Overall I’ve read positive things….The real test would be if you are seeing any click-through on your Ad’s. If yes then they must be having some matching quality.

It seems many are struggling with this. Check out the post on Techcrunch today about the new AdSense search box and syndicated ads. I think Google is trying to buckle down and push their way through a tough global economy. But are they pissing off AdSense users? Definitely.

It could also have something to do with links in responses, perhaps. I could be way off, but on my blog someone commented and left the url for their gay blog and it affected my adsense ads for quite a while. Kind of crappy, but it can happen.

“The only other explanation I can think of is that perhaps because the ads are geotargetted that in some parts of the world there are less ads in the system and that relevancy suffers in these places.”

I have been using them for my feeds and have been seeing them in the numerous feeds I am subscribed to and so far they have been pretty contextual for me. Though like adsense they do display OT ads at times but that is to be expected.

Ah the joys of adsense. It’s been putting Hello Kitty Underwear ads next to some of my email messages in gmail lately. It’s only a matter of time before we start seeing ads with chubby gay men in hello kitty underwear!!! It’s a conspiracy I tell ya!

Theres not much you can do about it actually. Take it or leave it. Is there a way to get direct advertisers in your RSS feeds? I don’t know if theres a way, but if its possible should give you better returns.

The ad on this particular RSS feed was about running Adsense on your blog, so I guess that’s pretty relevant. But that ad for chubby gay guys is pretty darn funny! Made me laugh a little… and forced me to check the ads on my own RSS feeds. Everything seemed relevant.

I haven’t paid attention to Adsense for RSS, but with standard Adsense I know I sometimes see ads that seem very tailored to my search history and barely relevant, if at all, to the site I’m actually looking at.

Hi guys. I have to say that search history or previously viewed websites or even user trends or habits over long period of time do NOT play role in displaying AdSense ads. If it did, i would have never seen that kind of advertisement.
I bet its the case of not enough ads in rotation in AdSense system. Sometimes it will show unrelated ads because its a machine and no matter how good it will be, it WILL make mistakes.

I’m just not very comfortable with ceding editorial control over ad content to a third-party. When it comes to your brand, you are ultimately responsible for all of the content that appears in or with all of your material.

Haven’t tried RSS ads, but I’d had similar, the girl version, occur early on in my use of context-based ads on the blog itself.. Not what I was writing about and no clue what was the trigger..

Finally had to nix context-based completely when questionable get-healthy-quick fixes started being the only serving of the day, especially the ones that looked like they were shipped from overseas.. OUUUUCH.. :))

It’s funny – I use Outlook to view your RSS feed and I don’t seem to get any of the AdSense ads. I just don’t see them. John Chow did a post a month or so ago about his RSS AdSense ads and I thought it was strange then, too, because I’ve never seen any of his AdSense ads either. Is there something that filters them out in Outlook? Outlook seems like a pretty normal way to view an RSS feed – not that I really mind not seeing any ads, but more of an FYI to you.

If google was smart (which they are) I bet they are using the Google Reader Trends data to target the ads. That also might be why you can only see the ads with GReader. Ads are not always based on content, google has much more valuable information about you that it uses to target it’s ads.